Last day in Nanchang

Tengwang pavillion at night

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Well, today is our last day in the friendly city of Nanchang. Last night we did manage to get one night shot of the pagoda all lit up. Hope you like it!

I guess the city is sad to see us go, because it's been raining all morning... We braved the rain, though, and after a quick trip to the grocery store, we decided to take a quick trip down "souvenir alley", the street next to the hotel where you can find lots of porcelain, wood carving and calligraphy shops. We tried our best to bargain with the shopkeepers, but it's so hard for us to argue over what is equivalent to a few dollars... Even though over the whole trip those little dollar amounts will add up. Plus, we've never been big into the whole shopping thing, so most of the time we just want to get the buying over with.

Nevertheless we managed to get two little wood carvings, very detailed and delicate (sorry, no pictures of them at the moment), and we also made a purchase at the calligraphy store. We went in and tried to get the best price we could on the scrolls we liked the best. Unfortunately, it was pretty much impossible to get an idea of the pricing scheme (items were priced between 100 and 2000 yuan), and only one guy there spoke any English, making it challenging to get any information about it. In the end, we got the artist himself to paint a scroll for us while we waited. We got some pretty neat shots of the whole thing being painted (anyone able to translate what he wrote?). That was a really neat experience.

Our own scroll is being painted

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On the baby front, E now has 4 teeth (not sure when that last one showed up - maybe last night?). We're all preparing ourselves for the girls' first flight. It promises to be interesting :) We'll give you an update tomorrow at the latest.

And so we bid adieu to the city we've been calling home for the last week. Beijing, here we come!